In this July 8, 2014 picture, people walk on Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

(Newser)
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More than 750 plaintiffs are suing the Johns Hopkins Hospital System Corp. over its role in a series of medical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and 1950s during which subjects were infected with venereal diseases. The lawsuit in Baltimore seeks $1 billion in damages for individuals infected with syphilis, gonorrhea, and other sexually transmitted diseases through a US government program between 1945 and 1956, plus spouses and children of people infected. "Johns Hopkins welcomes bioethical inquiry into the US Government's Guatemala study and its legacy," a Hopkins rep tells the Baltimore Sun. "This lawsuit, however, is an attempt by plaintiffs' counsel to exploit a historic tragedy for monetary gain."

The suit claims Johns Hopkins officials had "substantial influence" over the studies, controlling some advisory panels, and were involved in planning and authorizing the experiments. An attorney for Hopkins calls the suit "baseless." It's the latest in a series of lawsuits over the studies. A federal judge in 2012 dismissed a lawsuit against the US government involving the same study.

Or consider Laurette Bender, who conducted “psychological research” on children in the United States as young as 3, which included “diagnosing” them as necessarily schizophrenic if they didn't like having their skulls squeezes, and subjecting them to electroshock therapy. Or “The Monster Study”, in which Wendell John and Mary Tudor constantly criticized the speech patterns of residents of American orphanages, even ones without difficulties, even accusing them of stuttering, eventually actually resulting in a number ending up with speech impediments. Or “Dr.” Hideyo Naguchi of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research injecting 150 Americans, adults and children, with syphilis, to “study its effects”. Or “Dr.” W. Paul Havens testing a cure for hepatitis first by infecting residents of mental hospitals in Middletown and Norwich, Connecticut, without their knowledge or consent with the disease. Or “Dr,” Arthur Wentworth performing unnecessary spinal taps on 20 American children, without their parents' knowledge or consent, to see if it would harm them to have a spinal tap. Or the staff of the University of California, during the Sixties, studying infantile blood pressure by immersing newborns in ice water. Or a team., including Jonas Salk, testing a cure for influenza by first infecting residents of a mental hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan with the disease. Of the CIA conducting “Operation Midnight Climax”, which consisted of luring American men to warehouses with prostitutes, then testing the effects of LSD on them and, later, developing methods of blackmail. Or the “government” testing biological warfare methodologies by spraying a pneumonia like pathogen over San Francisco from Navy planes. Or the “government” testing biological warfare techniques by releasing mosquitoes carrying yellow fever and dengue fever in Savannah, Georgia and Avon Park, Florida. Or the “government” dispensing “energy drinks” laced with radioactive to 800 pregnant women, resulting in a number of babies dying and women developing things from rashes to tooth loss. And, now, the claim of a “measles” “outbreak”, even though not one person “afflicted” was named! Note how, when new subjects came up, the “outbreak” suddenly stalled at less than 200 “affected”! How unlikely is it that the “government” was testing out the effects of spraying airborne pathogens over Disneyland, or that they were examining the efficacy of presenting a nonexistent “outbreak” to convince the dull witted into getting themselves injected with active pathogens? And how unlikely is it that Cassandra C., ordered confined to the hospital by the state of Connecticut and treated with cancer drugs against her will, is actually being doped up with powerful poisons to contaminate society?